


Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-11
Updated: 2008-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-03 21:12:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam knows this road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Laura for looking it over. Title from Stephen Crane.

Sam is hot and tired. Beads of sweat roll down his forehead; they sting his eyes, leave the taste of salt on his lips. He rubs them away with a grubby forearm, pushes damp hair off his face, and looks around.

The sepia-toned sand stretches out to the horizon, the sky the same leached out beige as the ground, and the sun is a hazy disk of white behind the cloud of dust. He panics for a second, wondering when he went colorblind.

His lips are dry and cracked, and his whole body aches, but he keeps trudging towards the horizon, one foot in front of the other, relentless as the sun beating down on his shoulders. He can't stop. He can't stray off the path. He has to get to--

"Dean." Sam comes awake with a jolt, his voice a hoarse croak.

Dean is standing in the doorway of the bathroom, toothbrush in hand, white foam around his mouth like a rabid--Sam stops himself from thinking of Dean and dogs.

"You okay?" Dean says, eyebrows drawn together in concern. "Nightmare?"

"No." Sam pushes his hair out of his eyes, which are gritty with sleep, sees the featureless landscape of his dream. "Yeah. I don't know."

"Thanks for clearing that up, Sherlock." Dean sounds annoyed, but the set of his shoulders is tense and his mouth is drawn tight around his toothbrush, and it's not from anger.

Sam shoves past him to the sink, splashes water on his face, into his mouth, which is dry and tastes of dust.

*

Sam can't shake the nightmare feeling of desolation, sits in the car next to Dean as they roll out of town and onto the highway. The road stretches out to the horizon, faded black asphalt and double yellow lines, and the sky is pale blue as the sun burns off the early morning mist.

He closes his eyes and is back in the desert, back on the path, heading into the sun. With no other landmarks, he can't tell if it's rising or setting.

The ominous blare of music pulls him out of the dream, Jim Morrison singing, There's a killer on the road, and Dean singing along with him, not even aware he's doing it.

Dean glances over, concern written in the line between his eyebrows, and Sam manages a weak smile that doesn't convince either of them. Dean doesn't push, though, just puts a hand on Sam's knee for a second, warm pressure that's there and then gone, but Sam can still feel the touch like a brand.

*

Sam fiddles with the keycard to their hotel room, annoyed because he's obviously not swiping it the right way. He misses the metal keys they get at the older, more decrepit motels Dean usually checks them into. He knows why Dean's chosen to go upscale (well, relatively speaking), and that makes his palms sweaty and his throat ache.

He's waiting for the mockery, but when he looks up, Dean's head is cocked, his eyes wide and unnaturally green in the fluorescent lighting, staring at something Sam can't see.

Listening to something Sam can't hear.

"Shit." Sam drops the keycard and squats down to pick it up. The carpet's just as ugly here as it is in their usual lodging choices, but maybe it's a little higher quality, a little cleaner.

Dean clears his throat and Sam straightens up. Dean holds out his hand and Sam slaps the keycard into it.

Dean wrinkles his nose. "Dude, you got it all sweaty. No wonder the door won't open." He makes a show of wiping the thing off on his jeans before swiping it through the lock, which clicks open the way it's supposed to. Dean smirks, pleased with himself.

Sam rolls his eyes and looks down the corridor, which suddenly telescopes out forever, ugly beige patterned carpeting turning to sand, tastefully papered walls turning to granite cliffs, rough and crumbling in the flat half-light.

He blinks and it's gone, just another hotel hallway in another nowhere town.

*

Sam doesn't have much to pack because these days, he doesn't really unpack--the computer and his dopp kit and whatever clothes he's going to wear, but that's it. He's tried to get back into the habit of strewing his stuff around the room, the way Dean does, but those six months alone left their mark. He doesn't make his bed in the morning, and he hasn't tricked out the trunk with a weapons case (though he's reorganized it a little, over Dean's protests that he knows where everything is _just fine, thanks_), but he's much more aware of what he has, and what he's willing to leave behind.

He takes up as little space as he can, tries to move through the world without changing it, or bringing himself to its notice. It reminds him of being sixteen and outgrowing his clothes faster than they could buy them, and how he'd just wanted to curl up and be as small as possible, since he couldn't escape where he was. Who he was.

These days, he's not sure if he's more angry about what he isn't--what he could have been--than scared of what he is--what he would become--if it would keep Dean alive and with him.

Dean is searching under the bed for a lost sock, muttering his usual spiel about how there is a sock-eating monster out there and one day, Sammy, we're gonna hunt that bitch down and set it on fire, but Sam's already got his bag zipped and ready. He reaches into the front pocket and finds the little [**amulet**](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/06/Seth_Amulet.JPG/180px-Seth_Amulet.JPG) one of Bobby's contacts gave him, on the off chance it might help. It's about as long as his thumb from the second knuckle to the tip, and made of blue-green faience, which makes him think _Egyptian_, but he's not sure who or what it's supposed to be.

"Aha!" Dean straightens up, dusty sock clutched in his fist, triumphant grin on his face. He tucks it into his duffel and shoulders the bag. "Well, Sam? What are you waiting for? Let's go. We're burning daylight."

Sam snorts and shoves the amulet into his pocket. He'll figure it out later.

*

The sun is setting far in front of him, and he strains to see the colors he knows should be there--pink and purple and orange--but it's like a picture in an old newspaper, faded past black and white and gray into more muted tones of rusty brown and tan.

A bird circles overhead, black against the café au lait color of the sky--a crow, then, or a raven, harsh cry piercing the silence, shocking to Sam's ears.

West, it says. Hurry.

As if Sam's not already going as fast as he can.

*

Over the next three days, Sam sees flashes of the desert whenever he closes his eyes, can practically taste the salt of his own sweat on his lips, feel the sting of sand against his skin, and the heavy weight of exhaustion and necessity as he puts one foot in front of the other.

Dean watches him with worried eyes, mouth pulled into a tight line that makes him look like Dad.

They salt and burn a body, lay its ghost to rest, and Sam doesn't comment on the way Dean suddenly startles and drops the first book of matches into the grave before it's lit, doesn't ask if he's okay, because he knows he's not.

Sam doesn't sleep, fuels himself with coffee and Red Bull until he can't stop his hands from shaking, which makes typing more difficult, but he manages. He thinks he knows what he's seeing now, and why, and, more importantly, how it can help Dean.

*

Sam wakes cotton-mouthed and dry-eyed the morning after Dean is taken, head fuzzy from the drugs Dean slipped him, the desert lingering behind his eyes.

He knows Dean is gone because his favorite gun, his little black journal, and his car keys are sitting on the desk; the car is sitting in the spot in front of the room, gleaming in the sunshine.

There's no note.

Sam didn't expect one.

*

Sam arrives at the crossroads not sure what to expect, but there's no body, just Dean's leather jacket, shredded and bloody, and one of his boots.

He pours the salt circle, lights a fire in the center, and tosses herbs into it, hoping he's understood his dreams correctly. He stumbles a little over the words--there are no vowels in the text, and the only people who know how it should sound have been dead for thousands of years, thousands of miles away.

The air shimmers and the desert lies before him. The path begins at his feet and heads west towards the horizon. A red snake waits, ready to lead him to his destination.

Sam knows this road, now, knows it leads into the land of the dead. He puts the amulet of Set around his neck and takes the first step.

end

~*~


End file.
